Just got it!

Just got it!

I just got mine this morning. After my initial going over, I just have to tell you guy's what an impressive job I think you did on this book!I'm eager to go over it in more detail tonight. Damien, Bill, and everyone else involved, you've really outdone yourselves. I can see this book getting a lot of mileage in my campaigns.

You've got a .38 and your Book of Revelations - I've got a .44 and a Load of Temptation!

Mine arrived as well today. It really looks well done. I don't have CC2 so I will have to make some alterations, but I think I ma going to be using this quite a bit. Maybe I will just put some TOH2 Monsters in place of the CC2 ones -M

Well the MOET got its first use this morning for me. We were playing our Sylvan dearthwood cmapaign today, so this morning I used the tabkles to generate what would happen as the party travelled from the first area in the Book of Ruins to the Second (The Screaming Sanctuary). I made about a half dozen rolls ignoring the 3 no encounter rolls, I came up with 1 creature encounter, 1 traveller, and 2 unusual terrain/weather circumstances. After rolling to see what I came up with I got some giant fire beetles, a hunting group, a forest fire and a severe thunderstorm. I thought for a little while how I wanted to use these three and a couple hours later when the players arrived I was good to go. They had left off having just downed a dire boar that attacked them in a mad rush. We had some new players joining so I mad ethem the hunting party who had been hunting the boar (something had to madden it), and while the new players were debating with the old party about ho got the pig carcass, I had them roll spot checks to notice a faint luminescence near and uncer the carcass. While they argued, a half dozen fire beetles tried to scavenge the carcass. The pixie ranger noticed the glow and went to investigate and was surprised when a beetle borrowed out and bit her. The two groups quickly rallied together to destroy the 6 beetles (the encounter worked nice to ge tthe two groups to join forces). I then decided to hav eth estrom precede the forest fire and had ominous cluds be spotted rolling in with winds picking up and played up the description of the storm, leading to the party to decide to seek shelter somewhere. I let them roll search checks and told them they found a series of small hillocks in the Dearthwood that had some small caves in it. As they shelteresd in the caves I described a massive lightning strike nearby. It set a partch of the forest ablaze and they heard the animals staampeding from the area. THen came the torrential downpours dousing the fire. A few phony calls to make spot checks or listen checks overnight kept the tension up and in the morning I had them crest a rise to find the ruins they sought. All in all I wa spleased with how well a little time using the MOET could flesh out the in between parts of the adventures I had planned. They spent some time dealing with the ruins and its inhabitants ( a nasty group of hobgoblins, with an ogre in their service) and it was a cool session overall. If today's results are any indication, MOET will see an awful lot of use. I just need to pull out a pad of post-its and mark the start of each sub-table so they are easier to find when rolling things up. -M

*nods* note that the CRs are per monster; many creatures (as listed) are encountered in groups, which would raise their EL.

However, it is not surprising that the lower CR encounters predominate, for the simple reason that high CR creatures are by their very nature rare or very rare. At least in most campaigns they are! After all, how often is a party travelling overland gonna run into a pit fiend, or a titan?

Anyway, I hope they serve you well. Bill and I tried to make them adaptable, so hopefully you can tweak it easily to fit your own campaign style. Enjoy!

Got mine yesterday, I had to special order as it sold out right away at my FLGS. Then to make matters worse some dink tried to pick it up when I put it down for a moment, (right next to me) to look another book. The guy was a little resistant to giving it back at first, but the look on my face and my promises of all kinds of pain convinced him otherwise. Damn strait I was ready to fight for the book!Looks pretty cool by the way cant wait to put it to use.

More on CR's: They aren't as low as I had initially feared -- especially because of the numbers of creatures. Also, any NPC or travelling band, or (really quite anything) can have classes added or things to make them more interesting. It just seemed initially a lot of low creatures -- which again, sort of is as expected! I haven't had a chance to use it yet but will let you know how it goes.

My group has been in VoLK for a few sessions and is getting close to exploring the underdark.

Considering there are a couple people with 20ft movement... limited to 16 miles/day... and 1/4 of that in tertiary passages... there will be areas of the underdark where they progress about 1cm per day on the map...

So they will be down there a lot, and I'm really looking forward to spicing it up a bit with this resource

Just placed my order! My wife let me pick out my own Father's Day gift, so MoAET is now on the way!

I ordered it from www.scifigenre.com ... I have never used them before, but they had it for $17.60 (+$3.00 for shipping). I'll let you know how the service is...

Anyway, can't wait to use this book. My new campaign is a lot more "free-form" than my recent ones, so this should be a great resource.

Besides, got to support my Bloodways DM!

Frost"...he was a wondering mercenary, roistering, brawling, guzzling, adventuring, with no thought of the morrow, and no desire save sparkling ale, red lips, and a keen sword to swing on all the battlefields of the world." - The Hour of the Dragon, Robert E. HowardThe Mausoleum of Frost - Character Sheets and other evil treats

Well, my copy finally arrived today! FYI, scifigenre.com can be a little slow with the shipping, but they are up front about it (i.e., they tell you when they will ship the book, which is not the day of purchase). Anyway, it was worth the wait! Very nice work, Damien. This should be a great tool in the ol' homebrew deathtrap... er... campaign...

Frost"...he was a wondering mercenary, roistering, brawling, guzzling, adventuring, with no thought of the morrow, and no desire save sparkling ale, red lips, and a keen sword to swing on all the battlefields of the world." - The Hour of the Dragon, Robert E. HowardThe Mausoleum of Frost - Character Sheets and other evil treats

Just thought I'd mention some use I got out of MOAET last night. I got the book a while back (see post above), and rolled up a bunch encounters ahead of time, just to have ready in case I needed to wing something. While doing some prep for yesterday's game, I used one of these encounters to work in a new PC/player...

For a notable occurrence, I rolled a battlefield with the bodies of half-ogres and brown bears....

So, as the party approached, they saw crows circling a hill top and a figure (the new player/PC) moving about. As they got closer, they realized the human was burying someone. It turns out this fellow had heard the battle in the night. Unbeknownst to him, a druid and her bears were in a heated combat with the half-ogres. In the morning, realizing he was too late, he did his best to honor the fallen druid and bury her. In any event, it gave him and the party something to talk about, and soon enough, he was in the party.

FrostPraise not the day until evening has come;a women until she is burnt;a sword until it is tried; a maiden until she is married;ice until it has been crossed;beer until it has been drunk.-Viking proverb